Mob Associate Released From Federal Prison

Convicted mob associate Salvatore ``Butch'' D'Aquila Jr. has been released from a federal penitentiary after serving about one-third of his 15-year prison sentence.

D'Aquila, 54, of Middletown, was released from the Schuylkill Federal Correction Institution in Minersville, Pa., on Dec. 17, federal authorities said.

The former chief of the Patriarca crime family's multimillion-dollar sports gambling operation in Connecticut, D'Aquila is reportedly living in Old Saybrook.

His wife, Sally, declined to comment on her husband's release when contacted at her Old Saybrook home Thursday.

She referred all questions to the family's lawyer, Barry M. Fallick of Manhattan. He could not be reached for comment.

D'Aquila was sentenced Nov. 5, 1991, to 15 years in prison following his conviction on more than a dozen offenses, including gambling, extortion and accessory after the fact to a murder.

He was one of eight members and associates of the Patriarca crime family's Connecticut wing convicted in August of that year.

U.S. District Court Judge Alan H. Nevas signed an order terminating the remainder of D'Aquila's sentence on Dec. 17.

The terms of D'Aquila's release were not available Thursday. Law enforcement officials said Nevas reduced D'Aquila's sentence after hearing an argument that the sentence was unduly long based on federal rules, and after hearing evidence that a member of D'Aquila's family has a serious medical problem.

A clerk in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport said the file, which would explain Nevas' reasoning on the sentence reduction, is sealed.

D'Aquila was convicted of running the crime family's lucrative sports gambling operation out of Middletown.

During a four-month trial, prosecutors portrayed a gambling operation with dozens of employees and bookmaking officers scattered across central and southeastern Connecticut.

The illegal business generated as much as $500,000 a week for the crime family, FBI investigators said.

Low-level employees who testified described picking up packages of betting slips in parked pickup trucks or milk boxes and distributing them to colleagues at work. Later in the week, the witnesses said, they deposited the winnings back in the trucks or milk boxes.

Other witnesses described being threatened and harassed by D'Aquila or his employees when they were unable to make good on their gambling debts.

Nevas sentenced D'Aquila to nine years in prison on the racketeering charges and an additional six years in prison for helping to bury a murder victim in a mob burial ground beneath a Hamden garage.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, D'Aquila was expected to serve about two-thirds of the six- year sentence.